NEWS [UO.Com] Pet Training Exploit Fix

[UO News]

Greetings Everyone, We are aware of the exploit to make 5 slot pets more powerful by releasing and re-taming, a fix was published this morning. The pets that have been affected by this exploit will have their stats reset in the near future. We will not be touching the skills or the AI’s of the pets. UO Team

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[petemage]

The caps are working. (which may lead to the devs not doing anything about it.)

Lets keep the forums fact based.

IMO they should delete the pets as a sign to the honest players. Everybody who did this was pretty much aware of it being an exploit to an not intented bug. But then we know Mesanna is not keen on confronting any cheater whatsoever.

 

[GarthGrey]

Are these the pets are causing PvPrs to be in an uproar ? If so, then that change to pets shouldn't happen, just fix this exploit.

 

[CovenantX]

Are these the pets are causing PvPrs to be in an uproar ? If so, then that change to pets shouldn't happen, just fix this exploit.

No, pets are OP without being exploited to become overcapped.

 

[Tyrath]

One major illegal exploit down and one to go.

 

[Tyrath]

IMO they should delete the pets as a sign to the honest players. Everybody who did this was pretty much aware of it being an exploit to an not intented bug. But then we know Mesanna is not keen on confronting any cheater whatsoever.

Hey at least something we reported actually is getting or got fixed Hope the second one gets the axe as well even though it is not as major as this one.

 

[Cetric]

Hard to hit them too hard, because honest players may have bought pets like this. Maybe allow the fix to remove 1501 points manually so the pet isn't ruined.

 

[petemage]

Hard to hit them too hard, because honest players may have bought pets like this. Maybe allow the fix to remove 1501 points manually so the pet isn't ruined.

The message this says to me is rather "Don't worry when exploiting bugs, we will make sure your damage after we find out is kept to a minimum.". I don't think anyone will be discouraged the next time a bug surfaces.

 

[MalagAste]

Thank you team! @Mesanna, @Kyronix, @Bleak and crew!

 

[Pawain]

IMO they should delete the pets as a sign to the honest players. Everybody who did this was pretty much aware of it being an exploit to an not intented bug. But then we know Mesanna is not keen on confronting any cheater whatsoever.

The working caps saved us. The worst the exploit would do would be to allow all pets to become like Wild Tigers. That's a pet that has enough normal points to hit caps and have points left over.

The pets that have been affected by this exploit will have their stats reset in the near future

So, that means they know a pets stats. They could offer a token to reset pet stats if that is true.

 

[Deadly Serious]

finally now I don't have to follow the crowd!

 

[Slayvite]

Oh there is still 2 better bugs than this one that are still out there and haven't been touched. This bug is just the easiest to fix, the others would require ALOT of work to fix

 

[Merus]

Trying to fix pets has disaster written all over it. This publish has been out a while now, with lots of pets being bought and sold. With the diversity of pets that come in 2 different slot requirements how is the honest player really supposed to know the difference? None of my pets seem over powered, but I definitely bought some that were advertised as starting as a lower slot in order to get extra points. Which stat gets adjusted... you can make a pet worthless by adjusting the wrong one? Did you want to keep hit points or strength or mana or intel... just disastrous. I will be ticked if some of the pets I bought get hosed!

 

[THP]

hey mesanna .....exploited pets....just delete em...dont mess about....put a marker out there...

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

IMO they should delete the pets as a sign to the honest players. Everybody who did this was pretty much aware of it being an exploit to an not intented bug. But then we know Mesanna is not keen on confronting any cheater whatsoever.

I have to say Bull to this post...

Some of us used the situation to take our pets back down a level due to the "pet level jumping bug" that currently exists as well. Imho if they release an emergency patch to stop this bug they should also release an emergency patch to stop the pets from jumping a level at random as well.

 

[Mervyn]

yes delete the pets, i need spare stable slots.

 

[cobb]

IMO they should delete the pets as a sign to the honest players. Everybody who did this was pretty much aware of it being an exploit to an not intented bug. But then we know Mesanna is not keen on confronting any cheater whatsoever.

Those players should feel lucky that no action is taking place against their accounts, not even a warning.

I do agree they should be deleted.

 

[Cetric]

Trying to fix pets has disaster written all over it. This publish has been out a while now, with lots of pets being bought and sold. With the diversity of pets that come in 2 different slot requirements how is the honest player really supposed to know the difference? None of my pets seem over powered, but I definitely bought some that were advertised as starting as a lower slot in order to get extra points. Which stat gets adjusted... you can make a pet worthless by adjusting the wrong one? Did you want to keep hit points or strength or mana or intel... just disastrous. I will be ticked if some of the pets I bought get hosed!

Agree there, so some pet has more hp and regens than it's counter part, and they decide to wipe it's str and make it virtually useless.

 

[Dot_Warner]

@Mesanna

Delete the exploited pets and infract the offending accounts.

Show the UO players that knowingly exploiting isn't acceptable.

 

[Mervyn]

The working caps saved us. The worst the exploit would do would be to allow all pets to become like Wild Tigers. That's a pet that has enough normal points to hit caps and have points left over.



.

Sir, you are quite wrong, what you were able to do was get a lesser hiryu 1>2 then back down to 1 slot, rince and repeat, always repeat, then you end up with a capped out lesser hiryu with only 1 slot, and you can use with bushido without taming.

 

[Pawain]

Agree there, so some pet has more hp and regens than it's counter part, and they decide to wipe it's str and make it virtually useless.

I don't know how long it went on. But if they revert the pet to the original values at the first use of the last upgrade:

1. Someone who built a pet while knowing they could use this bug will have a better pet than the ones who just tried. The problem is, when the revert happens their pet will have 300HP, but keep the regens and abilities.
You could build a pet like that now. But you wouldn't. They relied on the extra upgrade to put in the HP and Mana. Also they used the highest scrolls early to get the best benefit.

2. Most found out recently. So they will revert to the pet they made originally. And the effects of the bug will be taken away.

The ones who knew longest would get their pets basically wiped out. The ones who started when everyone found out will get a slap on the wrist by losing the last 3 days of time they spent doing this.

I think @Kyronix did the best thing that could have been done.

 

[Mervyn]

Also, we had some interesting results, we were able to drop pets down a slot, that wouldn't normally go down that low, which means you could have say 5 canine pack instinct blood foxes.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Sir, you are quite wrong, what you were able to do was get a lesser hiryu 1>2 then back down to 1 slot, rince and repeat, always repeat, then you end up with a capped out lesser hiryu with only 1 slot, and you can use with bushido without taming.

Yepp.. seen one person running with 2 maxed Cu's.... both 2 slotters.

 

[Mervyn]

While this specific bug was not found during the test centre phase. The dev team have created extra work for themselves, that they did not need to create. When UO announced they were publishing this publish, I and others, begged them not to release until the bugs were fixed, there are still bugs that were raised on test centre that have not been fixed. They've just completeley ruined this publish for everyone now AND created a whole ton of work for themselves as some middle management somewhere stuck a random deadline dart on a calendar that must've been pinned up on the back of a door during lunch break...

I'd show the links to the posts where people said "don't publish yet, there are still bugs". But statics search is currently down.

 

[petemage]

And slowly the full impact begins to surface

 

[Pawain]

Sir, you are quite wrong, what you were able to do was get a lesser hiryu 1>2 then back down to 1 slot, rince and repeat, always repeat, then you end up with a capped out lesser hiryu with only 1 slot, and you can use with bushido without taming.

And if the caps were not in place, how much HP, STR, and Mana would those Lessers have now? Their values are at max cap right now.

The caps saved us. Shout it out on the Mountaintop. IM A BELIEVER!!!

Here is a visual aid for the spiritually challenged:

Normal Lesser: One went for more HP. They have 120 scrolls, all regens except max stamina. (not needed) These are pagan lesser that have no faith in the exploit Gods.



If they could reach caps they could have values like these they have to chose because the caps worked.: If you see any pet with (HP x3 + Mana x.5 +Stamina x.5) that equals greater than 3300 then post it here.

Hits Mana
800 1650
900 1050
950 750
1000 450

So the best build would have 100 more HP than mine. All the mana goes away in 2 minutes. Who cares.

My pagans work just fine. They have a magic skill, the same abilities, strength, damage output as the ones the exploit gods created in their own image.

All the other lore pages don't matter. Mine have the same as theirs. The exploited ones only have a higher HP/mana combo.

My first disagreement with Mervyn. I must make it biblical.

Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

I'm here for you, Brother

 

[Mervyn]

yeah but @Pawain, okay the stats were capped so yeah technically it could've gotten ridiculous, but the major exploit was the followers and taming requirement, you could have a capped out hiryu with only 1 slot and no taming at all.

 

[Pawain]

Sir, you are quite wrong, what you were able to do was get a lesser hiryu 1>2 then back down to 1 slot, rince and repeat, always repeat, then you end up with a capped out lesser hiryu with only 1 slot, and you can use with bushido without taming.

To answer this very specific case. Report them.

Also, when the revert happens that Lesser will have 300hp. I don't know how many of those are out there. I've seen n0ne. Have a screen shot?

 

[Mervyn]

Out of forums, teams are speculating how exploited pets will be reverted, and however they do it, it's made a lot of work for someone. I mean, they can't put a comma in the trade window cos that's too complex, but this...this they can fix?

Our bet, is they'll need to find a log of pets that have been released multiple times, but that fixes the tame release/tame release method, not the pet kill res/kill/res method, or the lion poisoning pet slot drop back method.

However they revert the pets, i'll be very surprised if there's no false positives and collateral damage.

 

[Pawain]

yeah but @Pawain, okay the stats were capped so yeah technically it could've gotten ridiculous, but the major exploit was the followers and taming requirement, you could have a capped out hiryu with only 1 slot and no taming at all.

Yup, I have not seen a pack of 5 Ostards either. I wish I could carry around 5 capped Ostards! Curse my training, I should have exploited this bug!

 

[CovenantX]

The exploit being fixed here isn't the same thing. but it may effect some pets that have been bought IF the person training/selling these pets abused this exploit.

Some of us used the situation to take our pets back down a level due to the "pet level jumping bug" that currently exists as well.

From the newsletter.

Animal Training Balancing The feedback from the recent animal taming update has been incredible! We know many people are enjoying taming new creatures to accompany them in their adventures throughout Britannia. We have been monitoring the feedback from these changes and will be deploying the following changes as part of Publish 98,

• Pet control slot requirement will only adjust when tamed. Pets that undergo the Animal Training process will no longer have their control slot requirement updated. Pet control slot requirement will still advance after applying available training points. The Animal Lore gump will now display accurate information 100% of the time.
• Pets with magery mastery will no longer teleport to player targets.
• Removed spell damage increase cap damage versus pets. Increased player direct damage cap vs pets to account for max hit points.
• Corrected issue with special move cooldown for pets versus players.
• All pet damage is now reduced by 50% when targeting players.
• We will continue to make balance changes in the future based off 1 versus 1 scenarios.

In red is the fix for pets "skipping" follower slots.

 

[MalagAste]

The exploit being fixed here isn't the same thing. but it may effect some pets that have been bought IF the person training/selling these pets abused this exploit.




From the newsletter.

In red is the fix for pets "skipping" follower slots.

Which is why I'm still waiting to do anything with my lesser or Fire Beetle... since the first time I tried training them they skipped.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

The exploit being fixed here isn't the same thing. but it may effect some pets that have been bought IF the person training/selling these pets abused this exploit.




From the newsletter.

In red is the fix for pets "skipping" follower slots.

My point is IF they had released the fix in red ("Pet control slot requirement will only adjust when tamed. Pets that undergo the Animal Training process will no longer have their control slot requirement updated") as soon as they fixed it then the release/retame bug would never have never existed because the only time a slot adjustment would be made is when they are initially tamed...*shrugs*

 

[petemage]

I have to say Bull to this post...

Some of us used the situation to take our pets back down a level due to the "pet level jumping bug" that currently exists as well. Imho if they release an emergency patch to stop this bug they should also release an emergency patch to stop the pets from jumping a level at random as well.

So because there is a bug with a new publish, you are self-righteous enough to allow yourself to exploit another bug?

By that logic dupes should be allowed when the UO store runs out of items/codes. You knew that "take our pets down a level" was not an intended mechanic, yet you exploited it for your own gain.

Not buying that people actively exploiting bugs are now the poor victims that had no choice but to do it. Next time the multiboxers will tell me they had no choice but to multibox, because otherwise they hardly get a drop! Be happy that Broadsword is not taking any further actions and let it be a lesson for the next time you get ahold of an exploitable bug.

 

[Swordsman]

It is easy to identify the level 1 - 4 pets with exploited gains as their stats and skill cap figures are obviously ridiculous.

For the level 5 pet, it is not so obvious for some popular categories as the natural gains are very powerful.

 

[Tjalle]

But then we know Mesanna is not keen on confronting any cheater whatsoever.

Hey, that sounds exactly like Stratics!

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Next time the multiboxers will tell me they had no choice but to multibox, because otherwise they hardly get a drop!

Seems like Mesanna said at a meet and greet not too long ago that multiboxing was not illegal.... *shrugs*

 

[MalagAste]

Seems like Mesanna said at a meet and greet not too long ago that multiboxing was not illegal.... *shrugs*

No she said they have no way to tell if they are using an illegal 3rd party program to cheat which apparently means no one on the team has a working pair of eyeballs...

 

[Fridgster]

No she said they have no way to tell if they are using an illegal 3rd party program to cheat which apparently means no one on the team has a working pair of eyeballs...

Actually I'm pretty sure she said multi boxing was indeed legal. just can't control them using a 3rd party script. Of course many do sinceit has been stated it's not possible to detect.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Actually I'm pretty sure she said multi boxing was indeed legal. just can't control them using a 3rd party script. Of course many do sinceit has been stated it's not possible to detect.

Yepp.. also remember reading a transcript where she said something along the lines of that being opened up once the fan base wanted the ability to dual client on the same machine.

 

[Riyana]

Hey, that sounds exactly like Stratics!

This is simply not true. Our rules are based on a strong anti-cheating stance. Basically, we don't want that garbage here. I know I don't want someone to come here and see a cheat mod and think "hey, that's great, I want that too!" and go download it. I don't want new or returning players to come to Stratics and see a UHall full of flame wars and people calling each other cheaters. What does that tell people about this game and its playerbase?

We do not allow open discussion of named cheating programs or imagery from them because we do not endorse use of cheat programs and do not want in any way to be part of that process.

We do not allow accusations of cheating because we don't and can't police the game, and accusations flying about, even when founded, inevitably lead to counter-accusations, flame wars, and dragging more people in and down. Does this sometimes have the effect of stifling fair grievances. Unfortunately, yes, and we don't have a good answer for this. However, it also keeps YOU safe from stones thrown back at you, and is the only way we can fairly and reasonably moderate. We don't know, can't see, and can't do anything about misbehavior in game, but we are caught in the middle. You need to page a GM or complain to the game staff about that; fighting about who is doing what here on this forum causes nothing but a hostile environment and no solutions for anyone.

You can discuss cheating and its effect on the game. You can't point fingers or post pictures that show what the cheat programs can do. Do you really want Stratics to be place people come to point fingers and sling accusations at each other all day?

Is there a mountain of cheating in UO? Yes. Is it absolutely beyond aggravating? Yes. I have half a foot out the door myself over it. But you know part of what brought me to Stratics in the first place? The high standard held against cheating. It's not welcome here. That it's run amok in the game is nothing Stratics can help... but we can try not to contribute to the problem by refusing to give it free advertising.

If anyone has any ideas for a fair, enforceable, and reasonable way that a staff of a few people can arbitrate and judge every accusation that comes up, then by all means let us know. Email [email protected], PM an admin, or post in the Stratics Help and Suggestions forum. We try very, very hard to be fair. We are fair and give benefit of doubt to people who do not and never will show us the same courtesy. But this site is not about protecting cheaters--it's about protecting UO players, and promoting fair and legitimate UO gameplay.

 

[petemage]

Seems like Mesanna said at a meet and greet not too long ago that multiboxing was not illegal.... *shrugs*

Did she also say it is now legal to exploit obvious bugs as long as you see fit? You know, that part of my post you choose not to respond to

Anyway, the lengths to which some try to defend this particular case is pretty baffling. Just be honest to yourself and admit it was a poor decision at that moment to take advantage of it. No one is going to spin a drama about it and It's not that any punishment is coming out of it from what the post on UO.com reads.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Did she also say it is now legal to exploit obvious bugs as long as you see fit? You know, that part of my post you choose not to respond to

Nah... but I do seem to remember her saying something to the effect of "whatever it takes to win"..

but... I have never claimed to be self-righteous... merely self serving.

 

[petemage]

Nah... but I do seem to remember her saying something to the effect of "whatever it takes to win"..

but... I have never claimed to be self-righteous... merely self serving.

Fair enough then I guess I've said all I wanted and bow out at this point. Have a good night!

 

[Slayvite]

What about the Honest players that bought their fully trained pets from Magencia traders? I'm quite sure they wouldn't have known what the "max stats" were supposed to have been.
So now they are gonna put out a patch that messes with stats without refunding training points.....but not skills so your ok if you added powerscrolls????
Oh i think not, basically they are gonna screw up alot of pets and make them very costly stable mounts.

Once again, because of the fact they rushed the publish out before it was tested and yes, THEY DID know about this particular bug and still allowed it to goto live.
Constant ineptness, you'd get fired if you were constantly this bad at work.....
So now they get around to fixing it with the weakest response they can, basically telling the playerbase that it's ok to exploit as all that will happen is the "item" will be dealt with eventually but your account will be safe...because?
They have allowed it to happen and cannot punish anyone as there is no way to tell if they are guilty of exploiting and just a naive player with too much gold.
I should add at this point that one of the other bugs (yes i said one meaning there are more than one) on pets is still out there and people are buying these pets from the vendors completely innocently without realizing......this one won't just be a stat reset as it involves the very core basics of training points.

And you're gonna trust them to do a re-vamp on Castles????? LOL

 

[Mervyn]

They probably won't get round to reverting the pets, they may allow players to individually report the pets to GMs if someone sees one, then after a year or two, people will call a GM, and the GMs will have no clue what the complaint is, and the reporter will be fed a canned response.

 

[TheDrAJ]

Seems like Mesanna said at a meet and greet not too long ago that multiboxing was not illegal.... *shrugs*

She said running 2 accounts or 3 at the same time was legal - but she never said that using a 3rd party program was legal.

 

[Swordsman]

One of the reverts I remembered, people used exploits to make faction dyed robes and sold them for gold. Finally, those robes were reverted to regular robes. Some folks lost their gold as they bought those exploited robes.

I think some of the obviously exploited pets shall be nerfed.

 

[Morgana Grim]

@Mesanna

Delete the exploited pets and infract the offending accounts.

Show the UO players that knowingly exploiting isn't acceptable.

Wouldn't it be difficult to tell which account worked the offending pet? Delete the pets yes...but pets could have been sold and traded to an account that had no clue.

 

[Petra Fyde]

So, that means they know a pets stats. They could offer a token to reset pet stats if that is true.

Not necessarily, they could just set the stats by creature type, giving it a random 'dice throw' of stats within the scope of that type.